Laundry cabinetry built to the same standard as the kitchen

A laundry is a small room asked to hold a trough, two machines, a bench, a drying rail and everything the rest of the house has nowhere else to put. It is set out the same way a kitchen is: measured first, drawn in module widths, then made in water-tolerant materials that survive a wet floor and a warm machine.

How the cabinetry itself is made

SERVICE 13 / 13

01 Trough and machine bays02 Bench over front-loaders03 Hanging and drying space04 Broom, linen and overflow storage05 Water-resistant materials06 European laundries in units

Reference photograph — timber cabinetry and built-in storage going in while the room is still a work site. Laundry joinery is fitted in the same order: carcasses levelled and fixed first, then bench, trough and fronts.

ZONES · 450 / 600 / 2340

Three zones a laundry has to hold

However small the room is, the setout divides it the same way — wet, machine and bench, storage and drying — and each zone is given its own module width before anything is cut.

450 / 600 WET

Wet zone

Trough, tap and the cabinet beneath it. The under-trough carcass carries the plumbing, so it is built with a removable base panel and sealed edges rather than a fixed shelf that traps a leak.

600 BAY · 900 BENCH

Machine and bench zone

Front-loaders sit in an open bay with clearance for hoses and door swing, and a continuous bench runs over the top for folding. Top-loaders change the plan entirely — the bench has to stop, or lift.

300 / 450 · 2340 TALL

Storage and drying zone

A full-height broom cupboard, shelved linen storage, a pull-out basket tower and a hanging rail with room for a shirt on a hanger. Planned from an inventory, exactly the way a pantry is planned — what is kept, where it is used, which module width holds it.

16 / 18MM CARCASS · 2MM EDGE

Materials chosen for a room that gets wet

Laundry joinery fails at the edges first. Moisture-resistant board for carcasses, fully edged panels rather than raw cut lines, a sealed junction where the cabinet meets the trough, and legs that lift the kickboard clear of a mopped floor. Hardware is chosen the same way: soft-close runners and hinges rated for damp air, with any exposed metal finished rather than bare.

Benchtops follow kitchen logic. Laminate is entirely reasonable in a laundry; stone or porcelain makes sense when the laundry is visible from a living space or you want it to read as an extension of the kitchen — the same slab, the same edge. The benchtop material comparison applies here without change.

SETOUT NOTES · 01–05

What gets decided before anything is cut

01 Machine type and size, measured with the door open — a front-loader bay and a top-loader opening are not interchangeable.02 Where the taps, waste and power already sit, and whether the plan moves them or works around them.03 Door swings: entry door, machine doors and cupboard fronts, checked against each other on the drawing.04 A wet-to-dry sequence — soiled basket, trough, machine, bench, hanging rail — so laundry moves one direction along the run.05 Ventilation and dryer position, including whether a condenser or a vented unit changes the cabinetry above it.

EUROPEAN · 1200 OPENING

Laundries inside a cupboard

In Oakleigh units, villas and apartments the laundry is often a single cupboard off a hallway or tucked into the kitchen run. The joinery has to hide two machines behind bi-fold or pocket doors, hold a small trough or none at all, and still find a shelf for detergent and a rail for drip-drying. Those plans are drawn alongside the kitchen so the fronts match — the same approach used on small kitchen renovations.

QUESTIONS · 04

Laundry joinery questions

More answers sit on the renovation FAQ and the thirteen-stage process.

Can the laundry be done at the same time as the kitchen?Yes, and it is usually the sensible order. The same joinery run, the same hardware and the same trades are already engaged, so the laundry is documented in the same drawing set rather than revisited later.Do the laundry doors have to match the kitchen?Not necessarily. Matching reads as one continuous piece of joinery when the rooms are connected; a deliberately different colour in a closed laundry is a common, and cheaper, choice.Can a bench run over the washing machine and dryer?Over front-loaders, yes — the bench sits above the bay with clearance for hoses and lids. Over a top-loader it cannot, so either the machines change or the bench stops short and returns.Is laundry cabinetry made differently to kitchen cabinetry?The construction method is the same. What changes is the specification: moisture-resistant board, fully sealed edges, a removable panel under the trough and hardware suited to damp air.

NEXT STAGE · 01 CONSULTATION · 02 MEASURE

Send the room, and we will draw it

Tell us the size of the space, which machines you own and what currently has nowhere to live. That is enough to start a setout for a laundry in Oakleigh, Hughesdale, Carnegie, Chadstone, Clayton or the surrounding suburbs.

Custom Cabinetry & JoineryPantry & Storage SolutionsKitchen Installation & Fit-OffGuide: choosing cabinetry materials

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